A blog on eminent domain, land-use, and related matters.

More Redevelopment Bad News — Washington, DC

If you keep track of takings for redevelopment, you may have come across news of Skyland, a major redevelopment project in Washington, DC, in the Southeast part thereof. It was supposed to be a big hotsy-totsy project anchored by Walmart, with the usual projections of a rosy future. Something like this:

But as is so often the case, things didn’t work out as hoped. Long story short, Walmart pulled out of the deal, and the project has so far, produced another one of those urban deserts that looks more like this:

And this is the good part. Much (most?) of the project area looks more like an urban desert; like this:

http://www.skylandtowncenter.com/webcamlive.html

To be fair, the project promoters claim that they will build another, smaller project but whether and how they will actually do it remains to be seen, particularly since the economy appears something less than robust at the moment. This project has been pending for over 10 years, and if these pictures are any indication, there is not much to brag about here.

We will try to follow up on this story, but for some reason, it has not been covered to speak of in the major newspapers. And so it goes.